Open-Air Baseball Parks

The Impacts of Weather Conditions

Jason M Graham

University of Scranton

Initial Research Question

  • Each of the thirty Major League Baseball (MLB) teams plays in one of thirty stadiums or baseball parks.

  • Of the thirty MLB baseball stadiums, 22 of them are open-air.

  • We would like to know if changing climate and weather patterns might have an effect on either team performance or game attendance.

MLB Parks

Fenway Park an Open-Air Park

Image from (“Step Inside: Fenway Park - Home of the Red Sox - Ticketmaster Blog — Blog.ticketmaster.com”)

Home Game and Weather Data

Table 1: Fenway Park Home Game and Weather Data
date dbl_hdr hm_tm vis_runs hm_runs attendance duration score_diff wl tempK humid precip tempF year month day wl_binary
1950-04-18 0 BOS 15 10 31822 208 -5 NW 284.8500 80.2500 18.29375 53.06000 1950 4 18 0
1950-04-19 1 BOS 3 6 25425 150 3 W 284.8813 85.9375 17.17500 53.11625 1950 4 19 1
1950-04-19 2 BOS 16 7 32860 190 -9 NW 284.8813 85.9375 17.17500 53.11625 1950 4 19 0
1950-04-28 0 BOS 1 4 5333 116 3 W 282.8500 90.5625 19.40625 49.46001 1950 4 28 1

Game Outcome Variables

Game Attendance and Duration

Climate and Weather Variables

Red Sox Runs

Red Sox Wins

Red Sox Game Duration

Red Sox Game Attendance

Yearly Wins at Home

Weather Over Time

Model Estimates for Win/Loss

Figure 1: Bootstrap estimates for logistic regression coefficients for win/loss.

Win/Loss Model Predictions

Figure 2: Bootstrap predictions for logistic regression model for win/loss.

Model Estimates for Red Sox Runs

Figure 3: Bootstrap estimates for linear regression coefficients for number of runs scored by Red Sox.

Attendance Predictors

Bootstrap estimates for linear regression coefficients for game attendance.

Attendance Variable Importance

Variable importance measures for predictors of game attendance.

Attendance Predictions

Predicted versus observed game attendance.

Attendance Model Performance

Table 2: Metrics for Game Attendance Model
Metric Value
rmse 0.1709739
rsq 0.5375165
mae 0.0987486

Duration Predictors

Bootstrap estimates for linear regression coefficients for game duration.

Duration Variable Importance

Variable importance measures for game duration.

Duration Predictions

Predicted versus observed game duration.

Duration Model Performance

Table 3: Metrics for Game Duration Model
Metric Value
rmse 22.6739381
rsq 0.4363977
mae 16.6034855

Conclusions

  • lack of evidence that weather conditions have a significant impact on team performance or game outcome

  • weather conditions may have an impact on game attendance

  • weather conditions do not appear to have a significant impact on game duration

  • there is evidence that the number of runs scored by the home team and visiting team may have an impact on game duration

References

“Step Inside: Fenway Park - Home of the Red Sox - Ticketmaster Blog — Blog.ticketmaster.com.” https://blog.ticketmaster.com/step-inside-fenway-park-boston-ma/.